BONOKOSKI: Guns, gangs and money smells of an election in the air – Toronto Sun

Every year, Maclean’s puts out its list of the most dangerous places in Canada, based on information gleaned from Statistics Canada and a data calculator known as the Crime Severity Index.

Regina sits at No. 125 of the 237 dangerous places listed by Maclean’s, perched near the midway point between the combined cities of Mississauga-Brampton and the Ottawa-area burb of Carleton Place.

This was where federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale was on Monday, in his home riding of Regina-Wascana, with an $11.9-million cheque figuratively in hand, aimed at confronting and combating gun and gang violence in the province.

Now, when one thinks of guns and gangs, the first city that pops to mind is likely Toronto but, in reality, it sits in the 131st position as the most-dangerous place in all the country.

It’s safer, apparently, than Spruce Grove, Alta., the equestrian showroom that comes in at ninth spot. And safer than 12th-place Stratford, the Ontario theatre town where Shakespeare lives on.

Toronto, which is pushing for a federal ban on all handguns, is apparently as safe as houses when compared to the aforementioned smaller places most would first consider quaint and/or picturesque.

But certainly not dangerous.

If it sounds like something heard before, all this money going to fight the gangbangers and handguns, it is likely because it has been heard before — in dribs and drabs from varying voices.

A press conference here, a press conference there.

This is an election year, after all, and a time when money is no object and the Liberals’ goal is to win at all costs.

Money is money and the fear of dangerous people with guns fighting over drug turf tends to get noticed. So they’re ramping it up.

The Trudeau Liberals like to tout that they have invested $327.6 million over five years to help support a wide array of initiatives to reduce gun crime and criminal gang activities, and another $8 million over four years in its so-called Youth Gang Prevention Fund.

The kick-in date is this year, but will Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s final budget before the federal election, to be tabled Tuesday, show us the money or tell us the number of dollars that have actually rolled out?

The numbers, it seems, are ever-changing.

At Goodale’s press conference Monday, he was joined by Christine Tell, Saskatchewan’s minister of corrections and policing.

Did she have to sing for her supper?

“Reducing gang violence in our communities is an important issue that this funding will help address,” said Tell. “By focusing on intervention, suppression, and prevention we can continue to ensure that Saskatchewan’s communities are safe to live, work, and raise a family.”

That would appear to be a yes.

And then on Tuesday, Toronto’s former top cop Bill Blair, now minister of border security and organized crime reduction, began his circuit tour of money dumping in the small Ontario town of Aurora and made a similar-fact announcement for funding to fight guns and gangs.

With him were Ontario Attorney General Caroline Mulroney and the province’s community safety minister, Sylvia Jones.

If there is a safe place for such a press conference, it is Aurora, for it appears nowhere on the Maclean’s list of Canada’s most dangerous places.